January 2009
24 posts
2 tags
Monklog: Bonnie Scout Billy Prince Niblett
Take two musicians, both prone to lethargically flop around in the minor key.
Lock them in a room.
And see what happens.
MP3: Kiss - Scout Niblett (ft. Bonnie Prince Billy)
Monkton x
3 tags
Planklog: Dark Was the Night - Holy F**k, Sufjan...
Have you heard this!?!??!?
Sufjan Stevens is back, with a ten minute epic for the Dark Was the Night charity album. It’s fantastic… where can you even begin to describe a track of this frankly daft magnitude? It’s soothing yet glitchy, dreamlike yet (at times) unforgivingly loud and blaring… suffice to say, his next album can’t come soon enough on this evidence....
Planklog: the end of live music as we know it?
This will stop the music (Guardian Article)
Are you also frightened?
Plankton x
1 tag
Planklog: Little Joy @ Dingwalls
Event: Little Joy @ Dingwalls
Date: Wednesday 21st of January
Observations: Little Joy treated an absolutely buzzing crowd to a set exhausting their catalogue. The audience were working up quite a fever before Little Joy had even made it onto the stage (Binki Shapiro: “I can tell already that this will be the best gig yet!”), and the band didn’t disappoint as they navigated...
1 tag
Monklog: This music crept by me upon the waters
It’s alive in the forums and pulsing through the blogs - music isn’t just art these days, it’s a human right. It’s something that belongs to us from the moment we log on - no, almost certainly before that - and no matter how sticky a subject that tends to be, I have trouble denying the notion in its raw form. **** The Books have been making spectacular music for quite some...
10 tags
THE WORLD'S GREATEST MUSIC PLAYLIST THAT WILL...
Grossly belated, but hopefully not too unworthy, Monkton and Plankton present THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC PLAYLIST THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER OF 2008 EVER. We suggest you ignore the use-by-date and devour immediately. Here’s the list: 1) True Love Will Find You in the End - Headless Heroes 2) Live to Tell the Tale - Passion Pit 3) Dancing Choose - TV on the Radio 4)...
1 tag
Planklog: Dark Was the Night
Indie gold right here chaps. February 16th sees the release of “Dark Was the Night”, a charity double-album for HIV and AIDS awareness. The record features a frankly insane array of artists lending a hand here, there and everywhere: Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, The National, Andrew Bird, My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists, Spoon, Cat Power, Arcade Fire and Beirut to name...
RIP Tony Hart
(Source)
1 tag
Planklog: Lucid Dreams
Oh, did I mention the new Franz Ferdinand record? Yes, I believe I did. It’s not out till the 26th but the internet had other ideas - it leaked quite a while ago now.
Love this track and it’s crazy 8-bit breakdown: MP3: Lucid Dreams - Franz Ferdinand
Plankton x
1 tag
Plankton Reviews An Album: "London, England" by...
“I’m gonna make you feel like a filmstar…”
How’s that for a statement of intent? It’s what The Lightyears insist in Filmstar, the 7th track of “London, England”, but something tells me it applies to the album as a whole. The blockbuster themes are all there: desire, heartbreak, tragedy, conspiracy. This ain’t no glossy, overproduced Hollywood...
1 tag
Planklog: New Beirut video
2009’s relentless stream of releases continues unabated - it’s essentially a month until a new Beirut double-EP is upon us. Here’s a sneak preview, the video for La Llorona, a song named after the popular Spanish legend of the same name…
Plankton x
1 tag
Planklog - RE: Animal Collective at Koko, 12/01/09
RE: RE: The knock-out blow
Of course you were impressed by the character of it all. If there’s one thing Animal Collective have never lacked it’s character. Why, their new material is triggering their ascendancy because this abundance of character is more focused than it ever has been before. Contrastingly, the gig lacked said focus. No better example than the final track of the...
1 tag
Monklog - RE: Animal Collective at Koko, 12/01/09
Re: The knock-out blow.
A gig is something like a Royal Rumble. You pile into the ring, pick your spot and prepare to engage in the bloodthirsty scrimmage. How close you get to receiving a blow from the one and only Rocky depends on a lot of factors. The size of the guy in front of you, fatigue, experience, stamina. Or, as some other fella puts it, ‘it’s all relative’. I...
1 tag
Planklog - RE: Animal Collective at Koko, 12/01/09
A slightly different take on the proceedings…
What they give with one hand they take with the other. There were moments of unbridled ecstasy - to be specific, the unlikely rekindling of fan favorite Slippi and the sublime euphoria of a Brothersport/Banshee Beat one-two. But there remain a few too many questions to be asked, such as why the first and last songs (In The Flowers and My Girls)...
2 tags
Monklog - Animal Collective at Koko, 12/01/09
Resolutely ensconced in the confines of his space-pod cum drum-kit, support-act Charles Hayward makes an impression. A peculiar one. Somewhere amid the synth and brit-camp psychedelia, Hayward has enough unaccountable energy to keep punishing his drum kit, at times the english language, even his audience. And the improbable effect is sort of alluring. There are some curiosities in life that...
Monklog: Re - Big Ideas
I will give you £50 if you can bear to sit through this video in full.
Thank you Microsoft. I guess that puts that Radiohead remix into perspective… Monkton x
1 tag
Planklog: Big Ideas
Excuse us for a short moment while we fight over the final playlist.
In the meantime, here’s a bonus best of YouTube 2008 “nomination” to tide you over…
Plankton x
1 tag
Monkomination: Lakeside by BLK JKS
Nomination #20 for ‘THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC PLAYLIST THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER OF 2008 EVER’
I’m at risk of breaking the rules here, but BLK JKS (pronounced Black Jacks) made the cover of The Fader in December and have discretely and selectively been giving away their debut EP since around about the same time - and so, though it’s actually on general release this...
1 tag
Plankomination: The Hollows by Why?
Nomination #19 for ‘THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC PLAYLIST THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER OF 2008 EVER’
So, I reach my final nomination, the immense pressure of putting the cap on what is essentially my top ten tracks of the year, give-or-take. And what other way is there to sign out than nominating the most fantastically awkward white kid indie hip-hop that I can find? There is no...
1 tag
Monkomination: Hooked Up On Us by Jay Jay Pistolet
Nomination #18 for ‘THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC PLAYLIST THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER OF 2008 EVER’
It seems the only way to follow something so revolting as ‘scatdog’ is to pour on the sweetness - I’m hardly bashful about pledging my allegiance to this young troubadour, but I’ve no doubt he’s one of the brightest talents cozied aboard the alt-folk...
Planklog: Scatdog
Plankton x
1 tag
Plankomination: Live to Tell the Tale by Passion...
Nomination #17 for ‘THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC PLAYLIST THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER OF 2008 EVER’
Passion Pit are a band that you’ll probably hear about a hell of a lot this year. In fact, odds are they’ll be heralded as 2009’s answer to MGMT, which will go to show how short indie memories are; whilst Passion Pit might enjoy similar success to MGMT, they’re...
1 tag
Monkomination: Ragged Wood by Fleet Foxes
Nomination #16 for ‘THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC PLAYLIST THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER OF 2008 EVER’
First God made heaven and earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be Fleet Foxes”; and there were Fleet Foxes. And God saw that the Fleet...
1 tag
Plankomination: White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons
Nomination #15 for ‘THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC PLAYLIST THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER OF 2008 EVER’
According to Chinese tradition, 2008 was the Year of the Ox.
I tend to disagree - from where I was standing, 2008 was definitely the year of Mumford & Sons.
It was back in June that I first saw them play, in the almost abandoned back-room of a pub in Henley. Fair enough to say,...